Fire Emblem play-through number I lost count

I'd planned to go to the hospital to get some work done today, but I forgot it's 9/11 and I live close enough to NYC that I saw the towers fall from my seventh grade English class. It appears there's going to be some march or parade today, and the main road to the hospital is closed. I could've gone via an alternate route, but traffic is about to get horrid, so I just went back to my basement. Since I don't have the equipment necessary in said basement, I grabbed for my DS and opened up another file for Fire Emblem: Fates.

I could've chosen to play either the Nohr or Hoshido route, especially since my DS thinks I haven't played either since this debacle, but the truth is that both those routes are depressing as hell. I like the royal siblings, and don't want to see any of them die. So back to Revelations it is, even though I won't have enough room to get everyone married without significant grinding. I've said it before (probably), but this game would have been so much better if instead of the multiple routes gimmick, they had just created one long, integrated story line.

I chose to play as male Corrin because I didn't like the voice acting for female Corrin. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten how much I dislike this particular voice:

It's the breathyness that gets me

I'll keep updates on the dumb pairings I select this time.
  

Fire Emblem: The Astral Dragon needs to go

I'm in my third playthrough of Fates, this time just trying to get as many supports and finicky special abilities as possible, and I'm at the end of my rope with this thing:

Maid turned dragon that does nothing

At the beginning of the story, one of your maids falls down a canyon with you, turns into a dragon, and takes you to your castle in. . . Streetpass heaven, I guess. The outrealm or something like that. Saving you took so much out of her that you have to feed her in between chapters so she levels up. As far as I can tell, you jump down this canyon again with Azura and it's no big deal, but whatever. This is just an excuse to get the castle deal rolling.

For the most part, I like the castle. There's the convenient shops, the statues (which became way more awesome once I realized they raise character stat caps), the mess hall, and even the arena. The private quarters, I could do without, but at least that helps you with supports.

This astral dragon thing, on the other hand, seems to be there because Intelligent System woefully overestimated how fun it is to see a characters' EXP bar go up in a single whoosh.

Which one would you go for, animated T&A or animated zombie dragon?

Fire Emblem: Fates royal siblings are way cooler than the Avatar main character. Out of all the old FE tropes that have been vanishing in the newer entries, the one I miss most is the non-intrusive "Tactician" player Avatar that had next-to-zero impact on the plot. I was ultimately displeased with the player Avatar's prominence in Awakening, and Fates is even worse.

First of all, Corrin's supposed familial relationships with both royal families weren't equally compelling throughout all routes. In Birthright, I would have liked her to be more anguished about going against the siblings that she grew up with. Conquest made more sense from a psychological perspective, but the idiotic plot device regarding the "curse" that didn't let her tell anyone about Valla crippled the storyline. Revelation comes out better story wise, but it's saddled with way too many characters for a mere twenty-something chapters of gameplay.

To make matters worse, Fates can't resist making the royal siblings love interests. My theory is that it has something to do with the meta-game that's undoubtedly cropped up somewhere online (I bet that you get stronger Child Units if Corrin marries one of the royal siblings). I've seen arguments that Japan has "different" views about incest than the West, which. . . I'm no expert in Japanese culture, but I'm pretty sure brother-sister incest is taboo in Japan. And don't give any of that "they're not blood siblings" nonsense. For most of the story, Corrin doesn't know that. And you can marry him or her to the siblings before they find out otherwise in the story.

But fine. I can easily ignore this incest thing by simply not marrying Corrin to her siblings. Which I didn't do. Whatever. You know what's not so easy to ignore? Camilla's status as a creepy fanservice girl. Just look at her boss battle intro scene:

Fire Emblem: Fates is offended that you thought Awakening was easy

As I said before, Awakening is a pretty easy game. Even hard mode is no big deal as long as you pick casual mode (and what adult with a job and limited time wouldn't?). Beat the first couple of chapters, rack up supports, and join characters so their important stats basically double. I can only imagine that someone at Intelligent System didn't like the watering down, and thus came up with new ways to screw with players, even those who picked casual mode, in Fates. 

The first major change is to the Pair Up mechanic, which essentially rendered Awakening into a "press A to win" joke in everything but the highest difficulties. Enemies can now pair up as well, meaning that it's not a good idea to just pair up a Swordmaster with a General and place them at the center of the map so enemy units can rush in for suicide. In that light, it's probably for the best that paired units can now either defend or attack together. I'm not sure I'd want to deal with a paired up set of tanks that not only blocks attacks, but also dishes them back out.

Dragon Veins, which seemed fun in the beginning, serve to further complicate the hell out of some maps. I believe the internet hates Takumi because of that water-draining incident in Conquest chapter ten. There was also a late Hoshido chapter that had the Dragon Veins appear and disappear, which trapped me in some booby-trapped floor with no healing items or healers while the games spammed Faceless units at me.

And then there's the RNG, which delights in screwing with players. More than usual. I hear this was common in the older games, but I started playing way back in high school, and I don't remember stuff like this happening:

Thanks to my friend Jean for capping these.

For those of you not playing this, that 4% on the right is the chances that "Ragnarok" would hit the your unit. I don't know if my friend was playing Classic mode at the time (permadeath mode), but let's hope not.

But that's just a one-time thing, right? Apparently not, because:

Ryoma is literally the strongest character in the game.

I have a job, Nintendo. Why did you make Fates so hard?

If TVTropes is to be believed, then Fire Emblem: Awakening caused a civil war within the Fire Emblem fandom. See, older FE games had a "permadeath", meaning that if one of your soldiers died in the game board, then they died for real, and forever. If one of the main characters died, then the game was over and you had to restart that battle. This forced the player to plan out every last move if they wanted to survive each chapter with their army of characters intact.

I'm not going to lie; I was never one of the players who refused to let any single character die, no matter how minor. There was always at least one ax-wielding fellow who die in their introductory map because they insisted on spawning way too close to enemy soldier. Even when I was a teen with relatively large amounts of free time, I was not the greatest fan of the permadeath feature. So I'm one of the players who likes that Awakening introduced a casual mode.

That being said, Fates is difficult even on casual mode. Especially Conquest. I blame the stinginess of the RNG, which insists on giving out level ups that refuse to cover for each type of unit's weakness. For example, I give you my Charlotte:

From my 3DS' unwieldy screenshot-taking feature 

High HP, strength, and speed, but supbar skill, defense, and resistance. This means that, more than once, Charlotte has been murdered by the Nth or so enemy that ambushes her in some corner of the map or other. Most of the time it's my fault, I admit, because I forget that I can't do what I used to do with a berserker this far into other FE games. She will be killed by some random sorcerer. She will be criticalled by some random enemy swordmaster with a Killing Edge.

I'm planning to do a Hoshido run in Classic mode soon. Jesus take the wheel. In other news, Charlotte is one of my favorites. I married her to Prince Xander despite my pseudo-incest threat last post. 

  

Fire Emblem Fates: just finished Birthright

It's late, at least for old ladies trapped in twenty-something's bodies like me. I have no intention of writing in-depth commentary here. No, I just intend to gripe about one specific thing.

For background, your FE characters can get married in game. If they do, they get a paired epilogue via flash card as the end credits roll by. It's a nice little bonus, specially for minor characters who don't get to appear on the game's ending scene. Also, I picked the female avatar because . . . well, there wasn't a reason. I just wanted to. I'll play the Conquest campaign as the male avatar, but I doubt there will be a difference.

Except on this next thing.

Married couples are all listed as "Male character did this and that, and his wife did this other thing, and they loved each other until the end of time, etc." I know this sounds like a tiny thing, but it's always the guy that's listed first. And it bugs me, like when that spot in your back you can't quite reach itches (I have a bad shoulder so there's actually a lot of my back that I can't reach, but I digress).

And it's not like I think the wife should always be listed first or something. In some cases, it makes sense for the guy to be lifted first. For example, "King Ryoma ushered an era of unprecedented peace in Hoshiodo blah blah blah, and his wife, that random unit the player paired him with, chilled as the queen etc." makes sense. The king (and more importantly, one of the main characters) gets listed first.

But it's always the guy first. Even when it's both relatively minor characters. And I was handling it. I mean, it's a tiny issue in the grand scheme of things. I side-eyed when we got to Princess Sakura and even though she's a princess, arguably as prominent as her brother Ryoma, she still got listed after her husband. I can't see why it wouldn't be "Princess Sakura dedicated her life to helping the poor, and her shady ninja husband lounged around in the castle looking hot. I guess. Who cares? They married for stats."

And then!

And then it was my (female) avatar's turn. And I got listed second in the game I paid for.

I am the main character, literally the chosen one of some dragon or other (I suspect I won't know until I play all three paths of the games). Anyway, I get listed after my own butler husband, who I married for his special ability that protects me in battle. And by the way, I was unsatisfied with the marriage. I should have gone with royal line pseudo-incest and married Ryoma (except there's not much pseudo about it) because I spent the entire game paired with him anyway.

You know what, I should play the Conquest as the female avatar and marry Prince Xander even though he's also my in-game brother (more than Ryoma if you want to get technical about it) and clearly the game doesn't care about decency.

Fire Emblem's shameless grab for more of my money

Pre-order on Amazon.

I'm counting the days until February 19th because that's when the next Fire Emblem game (Fire Emblem: Fates) comes out. Or, to be more accurate, games. 

See, the next installment has pulled a Pokemon and will have two different "versions". From what I've gathered on TVTropes, there are two royal families involved. One raised you, the other is your biological family, and the storyline branches depending on which family you side with in some kind of medieval conflict (I would choose the family that raised me, unless they're awful, but I digress).

And then! And then. It looks like there might be a third part that will be released as DLC, so I estimate that I'll be shelling out around $70 dollars to play this thing in full. And I'll be paying for it because, videogame gods help me, I love these games. I'm currently trying to harass my brother into playing Awakening so I'll have someone IRL to talk about this with.

I'm trying to be a little less bitter about this since I know that this videogame-making business must be getting rough. Immense numbers of hours go into making a polished game, yet the market is flooded by easily-cranked out "casual" stuff like Candy Crush, which are completely free for the vast majority of players. As it is, I don't know if it's possible for anyone to make the kinds of games I enjoy if the audience will only pay for a copy once, as it used to be in the days before DLC. The only other revenue source I can conceive is advertisements, and I'm pretty sure I'd hurl my DS across the room if my gameplay was interrupted by someone trying to sell me make-up. Or a car.

The more I think about it, the more I accept that DLC is pretty much the future. It might not even be a bad thing since it's probably easier to augment an existing game than it is to start a new game from scratch. I can only hope that videogame companies take care to deliver quality content via DLC. But considering the manure companies have been known to release (I'm looking at you Ubisoft), I'm not holding my breath.

For example, FE creators have been adamant that this new splitting in Fates is not as transparent as the Pokemon nonsense (Pokemon essentially releases two versions of the exact same game with a few different critters in each, then a third game a couple of years later that combines both versions; I have a friend who buys all three copies religiously). It seems that Birthright and Conquest will both have enough unique content to justify having to pay for Fire Emblem: Fates twice. Which begs the question, did they just release two incomplete games rather than focus their attention on making one complete, good game?

That's my biggest concern right now; that instead of getting one awesome game, I'll be getting three unfinished, crappy ones.

ETA 1/3/16: The special edition that comes with the full game is, of course, "unavailable" for pre-order.

Fire Emblem: Awakening; like Pokemon but with shipping

With multiple residency interviews coming up, an rotation through the pediatric emergency room, and a cold, I haven't had much time to write. Or read. Or the energy to exercise. Basically, I've done little that can be called productive all week. I haven't even played videogames, though I've been eyeing the game systems scattered throughout my apartment, all of them collecting dust.

Being a videogame fan is expensive. I own a PS3, a 3DS, and a PSVita. All of them I bought for like one specific game. I made each purchase in a moment of impulsivity, with my frontal lobe screaming you don't have time for this anymore the entire time. The 3DS I bought to play Fire Emblem: Awakening. 

I started playing Fire Emblem when I was a freshman in high school after a recommendation from my childhood BFF. I played with my brother and our favorite character was a little mage called Erk. At every sequel, the game mage was always "the Erk". We played the sequels religiously, usually saved pennies to buy them and begged our mother for money when they came out to the store. We couldn't afford pre-orders and they were usually sold out by the time we got to our local Gamestop. Ah, the early 2000s.

I like to think of the game as chess for people with short attention span. It's easier (unless you play the game "seriously"), and it usually has pretty funny characters keeping you engaged. It's divided into chapters that take place in a big board like this:

You pick a unit, move it up close to a enemy unit, and engage in a one-to-one duel. Whichever unit is stronger wins. There are several rock-paper-scissor type games within the game: sword beats axe, axe beats lance, lance beats sword; a magic thing with thunder, wind, fire that I don't remember off the top of my head; special units with bows, special support units that help other units move twice in one turn, and special flying units riding pegasi and wyverns.

Terrain and movement also play a big part. Horsed units can move much father than units on foot, unless it's a desert or mountainous map. Mages aren't perturbed by difficult terrain, but they usually need armed units to defend them. Archers can attack from more than one space, but they cannot defend themselves from close-up attacks. Also, units can form support relationships with each other that increases their defense and evasion.

And the more I talk about this game, the more complicated I realize it is. Still, it's simple enough that children can easily play it. Awakening, especially, is very welcoming to new players. Older entries in the series were unforgiving about letting units die in battle. If your favorite swordsman got ambushed by a cavalry of lance-armed horsemen, then you either restarted that map or accepted that the swordsman was dead forever. In Awakening, there's a casual mode where characters only retreat until the next map (barring death of the main character).

Awakening also lets you marry almost any two units, then they have babies which travel back in time to join you in a battle against zombies and an evil dragon intent on universe destruction. It is as awesome as it sounds.